This open access book focuses on robot introspection, which has a direct impact on physical human-robot interaction and long-term autonomy, and which can benefit from autonomous anomaly monitoring and diagnosis, as well as anomaly recovery strategies. In robotics, the ability to reason, solve their own anomalies and proactively enrich owned knowledge is a direct way to improve autonomous behaviors. To this end, the authors start by considering the underlying pattern of multimodal observation during robot manipulation, which can effectively be modeled as a parametric hidden Markov model (HMM). They then adopt a nonparametric Bayesian approach in defining a prior using the hierarchical Dirichlet process (HDP) on the standard HMM parameters, known as the Hierarchical Dirichlet Process Hidden Markov Model (HDP-HMM). The HDP-HMM can examine an HMM with an unbounded number of possible states and allows flexibility in the complexity of the learned model and the development of reliable and scalable variational inference methods. This book is a valuable reference resource for researchers and designers in the field of robot learning and multimodal perception, as well as for senior undergraduate and graduate university students.

How can we provide guarantees of behaviours for autonomous systems such as driverless cars? This tutorial text, for professionals, researchers and graduate students, explains how autonomous systems, from intelligent robots to driverless cars, can be programmed in ways that make them amenable to formal verification. The authors review specific definitions, applications and the unique future potential of autonomous systems, along with their impact on safer decisions and ethical behaviour. Topics discussed include the use of rational cognitive agent programming from the Beliefs-Desires-Intentions paradigm to control autonomous systems and the role model-checking in verifying the properties of this decision-making component. Several case studies concerning both the verification of autonomous systems and extensions to the framework beyond the model-checking of agent decision-makers are included, along with complete tutorials for the use of the freely-available verifiable cognitive agent toolkit Gwendolen, written in Java.

With the increased use of armed drones has come closer scrutiny of the legal and ethical dimensions. In the first chapter of this book, the author makes an assessment of the lethal use of drone technologies, measured in terms of their legality, morality, and overall effectiveness. Armed unmanned aerial vehicles -- combat drones -- have fundamentally altered the ways the United States conducts military operations aimed at countering insurgent and terrorist organisations. Drones may reduce risks to human soldiers but the question arises as to whether they permit the initiation or escalation of conflict by promoting civic disengagement. The authors of the second chapter offer an analysis of the dimensions surrounding this argument.

An introduction to the science and practice of autonomous robots that reviews over 300 current systems and examines the underlying technology. Autonomous robots are intelligent machines capable of performing tasks in the world by themselves, without explicit human control. Examples range from autonomous helicopters to Roomba, the robot vacuum cleaner. In this book, George Bekey offers an introduction to the science and practice of autonomous robots that can be used both in the classroom and as a reference for industry professionals. He surveys the hardware implementations of more than 300 current systems, reviews some of their application areas, and examines the underlying technology, including control, architectures, learning, manipulation, grasping, navigation, and mapping. Living systems can be considered the prototypes of autonomous systems, and Bekey explores the biological inspiration that forms the basis of many recent developments in robotics. He also discusses robot control issues and the design of control architectures. After an overview of the field that introduces some of its fundamental concepts, the book presents background material on hardware, control (from both biological and engineering perspectives), software architecture, and robot intelligence. It then examines a broad range of implementations and applications, including locomotion (wheeled, legged, flying, swimming, and crawling robots), manipulation (both arms and hands), localization, navigation, and mapping. The many case studies and specific applications include robots built for research, industry, and the military, among them underwater robotic vehicles, walking machines with four, six, and eight legs, and the famous humanoid robots Cog, Kismet, ASIMO, and QRIO. The book concludes with reflections on the future of robotics-the potential benefits as well as the possible dangers that may arise from large numbers of increasingly intelligent and autonomous robots.

Suitable for both senior-level and first-year graduate courses, this fully revised edition provides a unique and systematic treatment of engineering dynamics that covers Newton-Euler and Lagrangian approaches. New to this edition are: two completely revised chapters on the constraints on, and potential energies for, rigid bodies, and the dynamics of systems of particles and rigid bodies; clearer discussion on coordinate singularities and their relation to mass matrices and configuration manifolds; additional discussion of contravariant basis vectors and dual Euler basis vectors, as well as related works in robotics; improved coverage of navigation equations; inclusion of a 350-page solutions manual for instructors, available online; a fully updated reference list. Numerous structured examples, discussion of various applications, and exercises covering a wide range of topics are included throughout, and source code for exercises, and simulations of systems are available online.

Researchers, academicians and professionals expone in this book their research in the application of intelligent computing techniques to software engineering. As software systems are becoming larger and complex, software engineering tasks become increasingly costly and prone to errors. Evolutionary algorithms, machine learning approaches, meta-heuristic algorithms, and others techniques can help the effi ciency of software engineering.

The Ultimate Tool for MINDSTORMS(r) Maniacs
The new MINDSTORMS kit has been updated to include a programming brick, USB cable, RJ11-like cables, motors, and sensors. This book updates the robotics information to be compatible with the new set and to show how sound, sight, touch, and distance issues are now dealt with.
The LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT and its predecessor, the LEGO MINDSTORMS Robotics Invention System (RIS), have been called "the most creative play system ever developed." This book unleashes the full power and potential of the tools, sensors, and components that make up LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT. It also provides a unique insight on newer studless building techniques as well as interfacing with the traditional studded beams. Some of the world's leading LEGO MINDSTORMS inventors share their knowledge and development secrets. You will discover an incredible range of ideas to inspire your next invention. This is the ultimate insider's look at LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT system and is the perfect book whether you build world-class competitive robots or just like to mess around for the fun of it.
Featuring an introduction by astronaut Dan Barry and written by Dave Astolfo, Invited Member of the MINDSTORMS Developer Program and MINDSTORMS Community Partners (MCP) groups, and Mario and Guilio Ferrari, authors of the bestselling Building Robots with LEGO Mindstorms, this book covers:
Understanding LEGO Geometry
Playing with Gears
Controlling Motors
Reading Sensors
What's New with the NXT?
Building Strategies
Programming the NXT
Playing Sounds and Music
Becoming Mobile
Getting Pumped: Pneumatics
Finding and Grabbing Objects
Doing the Math
Knowing Where You Are
Classic Projects
Building Robots That Walk
Robotic Animals
Solving a Maze
Drawing and Writing
Racing Against Time
Hand-to-Hand Combat
Searching for Precision
*Complete coverage of the new Mindstorms NXT kit
*Brought to you by the DaVinci's of LEGO
*Updated edition of a bestseller

If you are thinking about buying a robot, trying to learn how to program a robot, or teaching someone else to program and need a text book, then this book is definitely the one you are looking for. Welders that are learning how to program a robot will find everything that you need to get started programming an MIG welding robot. All of the secret tricks of the trade are here for the taking. This book should be useful to the owner, buyer, or potential buyer of a welding robot as well to the programmers of the welding robots. Both of these groups have a need for a book that does not seem to exist and it just seemed to make more sense for me to write one book instead of two. The first part of the book is geared more towards the owner/operators of weld shops that have a need of a robot and the rest is directed more towards the workers that are trying to learn how to program the robots. My hope is that both groups will find a use for the entire book but I'll admit that there is going to be much more for the people that need to learn how to program the robots. Their need is much greater. I also hope that some of the curious souls that end up with this book in their hands for whatever reason, especially any of the younger generation of welders, that this book may get them interested enough for them to give serious consideration into becoming a robotic programmer. I'm also looking at the real possibility of this book being used in many of the training programs that are teaching robotic programming because there is no text book out there that they can use, at least until now. But whoever you are or for whatever reason that you have picked this book up, I hope it will give you a better understanding about robot programming and the growing need for robots and their programmers in the modern work place.

Humanoid Robots: Modeling and Control provides systematic presentation of the models used in the analysis, design and control of humanoid robots. The book starts with a historical overview of the field, a summary of the current state of the art achievements and an outline of the related fields of research. It moves on to explain the theoretical foundations in terms of kinematic, kineto-static and dynamic relations. Further on, a detailed overview of biped balance control approaches is presented. Models and control algorithms for cooperative object manipulation with a multi-finger hand, a dual-arm and a multi-robot system are also discussed. One of the chapters is devoted to selected topics from the area of motion generation and control and their applications. The final chapter focuses on simulation environments, specifically on the step-by-step design of a simulator using the Matlab (R) environment and tools. This book will benefit readers with an advanced level of understanding of robotics, mechanics and control such as graduate students, academic and industrial researchers and professional engineers. Researchers in the related fields of multi-legged robots, biomechanics, physical therapy and physics-based computer animation of articulated figures can also benefit from the models and computational algorithms presented in the book.

Looking for ways to handle the transition to a digital economy.Robots, artificial intelligence, and driverless cars are no longer things of the distant future. They are with us today and will become increasingly common in coming years, along with virtual reality and digital personal assistants. As these tools advance deeper into everyday use, they raise the question-how will they transform society, the economy, and politics? If companies need fewer workers due to automation and robotics, what happens to those who once held those jobs and don't have the skills for new jobs? And since many social benefits are delivered through jobs, how are people outside the workforce for a lengthy period of time going to earn a living and get health care and social benefits? Looking past today's headlines, political scientist and cultural observer Darrell M. West argues that society needs to rethink the concept of jobs, reconfigure the social contract, move toward a system of lifetime learning, and develop a new kind of politics that can deal with economic dislocations. With the U.S. governance system in shambles because of political polarization and hyper-partisanship, dealing creatively with the transition to a fully digital economy will vex political leaders and complicate the adoption of remedies that could ease the transition pain. It is imperative that we make major adjustments in how we think about work and the social contract in order to prevent society from spiraling out of control. This book presents a number of proposals to help people deal with the transition from an industrial to a digital economy. We must broaden the concept of employment to include volunteering and parenting and pay greater attention to the opportunities for leisure time. New forms of identity will be possible when the "job" no longer defines people's sense of personal meaning, and they engage in a broader range of activities. Workers will need help throughout their lifetimes to acquire new skills and develop new job capabilities. Political reforms will be necessary to reduce polarization and restore civility so there can be open and healthy debate about where responsibility lies for economic well-being. This book is an important contribution to a discussion about tomorrow-one that needs to take place today.

Offers a comprehensive review of the research and development of mechanically responsive materials and their applications in soft robots Mechanically Responsive Materials for Soft Robotics offers an authoritative guide to the current state of mechanically responsive materials for the development of soft robotics. With contributions from an international panel of experts, the book examines existing mechanically responsive materials such as crystals, polymers, gels, and composites that are stimulated by light and heat. The book also explores the application of mechanical materials to soft robotics. The authors describe the many excellent mechanical crystals developed in recent years that show the ability to bend, twist, rotate, jump, self-heal, and shape memory. Mechanical polymer materials are described for evolution into artificial muscles, photomobile materials, bioinspired soft actuators, inorganic-organic hybrid materials, multi-responsive composite materials, and strain sensor materials. The application of mechanical materials to soft robots is just the beginning. This book reviews the many challenging and versatile applications, such as soft microrobots made from photoresponsive elastomers, four-dimensional printing for assembling soft robots, self-growing of soft robots like plants, and biohybrid robots using muscle tissue. This important book: -Explores recent developments in the use of soft smart materials in robotic systems -Covers the full scope of mechanically responsive materials: polymers, crystals, gels, and nanocomposites -Deals with an interdisciplinary topic of advanced smart materials research -Contains extensive descriptions of current and future applications in soft robotics Written for materials scientists, polymer chemists, photochemists, physical chemists, solid state chemists, inorganic chemists, and robotics engineers, Mechanically Responsive Materials for Soft Robotics offers a comprehensive and timely review of the most recent research on mechanically responsive materials and the manufacture of soft robotics.

The link between cyberpunk and making has always been strong, sharing the If you can't hack it, you don't own it ethos. In this issue of Make:, we show you the newest emerging technologies, how to get into things you shouldn't with our spy tech roundup, and how to repurpose useful parts from discarded electronics. We also help you answer the crucial question: are you still a cyberpunk? Inside you will find 13 projects, including how to: Build a wheelchair for your furry friend out of hardware store parts Text your bestie with a casual raise of the eyebrow and a muscle sensor Craft a cheap, easy-to-assemble rubber-band helicopter out of household supplies and a 2-liter soda bottle Make super cute papercraft succulents to decorate your space And more!

This second volume of The LEGO Power Functions Idea Book, Cars and Contraptions, showcases small projects to build with LEGO Technic gears, motors, gadgets, and other moving elements. You ll find hundreds of clever, buildable mechanisms, each one demonstrating a key building technique or mechanical principle. You ll learn to build four-wheel drive cars, adorable walking bots, steerable tanks, robotic inchworms, and cars that can follow the edge of a table! Each model includes a list of required parts and colorful photographs that guide you through the build without the need for step-by-step instructions. As you build, you ll explore the principles of gear systems, power translation, differentials, suspensions, and more.

Get to grips with the principles and practice of signal processing used in mobile communications systems. Focusing particularly on speech, video, and modem signal processing, pioneering experts employ a detailed, top-down analytical approach to outline the network architectures and protocol structures of multiple generations of mobile communications systems, identify the logical ranges where media and radio signal processing occur, and analyze the procedures for capturing, compressing, transmitting, and presenting media. Chapters are uniquely structured to show the evolution of network architectures and technical elements between generations up to and including 5G, with an emphasis on maximizing service quality and network capacity through re-using existing infrastructure and technologies. Implementation examples and data taken from commercial networks provide an in-depth insight into the operation of real mobile communications systems, including GSM, cdma2000, W-CDMA, LTE, and LTE-A, making this a practical, hands-on guide for both practicing engineers and graduate students in wireless communications.

Complete, state-of-the-art coverage of robot analysis

This unique book provides the fundamental knowledge needed for understanding the mechanics of both serial and parallel manipulators. Presenting fresh and authoritative material on parallel manipulators that is not available in any other resource, it offers an in-depth treatment of position analysis, Jacobian analysis, statics and stiffness analysis, and dynamical analysis of both types of manipulators, including a discussion of industrial and research applications. It also features:

• The homotopy continuation method and dialytic elimination method for solving polynomial systems that apply to robot kinematics
• Numerous worked examples and problems to reinforce learning
• An extensive bibliography offering many resources for more advanced study

Drawing on Dr. Lung-Wen Tsai's vast experience in the field as well as recent research publications, Robot Analysis is a first-rate text for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and computer studies, as well as an excellent desktop reference for robotics researchers working in industry or in government.

This book is a beginner's guide to AutomationML Edition 2, written for students, engineers, lecturers, developers and those interested. In guides through the basics of AutomationML Edition 2, CAEX and the AutomationML Editor. AutomationML stands for digitisation of engineering data and engineering workflows. AutomationML achieves both human readability and machine-readability. It is a method for converting data into digital information, and it supports the special needs of iterative engineering data exchange. AutomationML is in the hot spot of the digitisation of automation engineering data. It enables the modelling and transport of engineering data in a vendor neutral and machine-readable models, a valuable source of digital innovation. Machine readable engineering data makes the data accessible and interpretable by software, enabling a plethora of opportunities. This book carefully introduces AutomationML, its goals, values and innovations. It teaches the architecture of AutomationML and explains the language elements with a multitude of examples and step-by-step instructions. Additional material to the book and more information about AutomationML on the website: https://www.automationml.org/about-automationml/publications/amlbook/

In alignment with BCS AI Foundation and Essentials certificates, this introductory guide provides the understanding you need to start building artificial intelligence (AI) capability into your organisation. You will learn how AI is being utilised today and how it is likely to be used in the future to balance the talents of humans and machines. You will explore robotics and machine learning within the context of AI, and discover how the challenges AI presents are being addressed.

Young Architects 22: Value features work by the winners of the 2020 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers. The competition theme examined the meanings of value in contemporary architecture - a concept that spans "numbers, colours, measurement, worth, and ethics," in the words of the theme statement. From an open-source robotics laboratory producing new architectural forms and processes to a series of community gardens built from salvaged architectural models, the projects and practices featured in this volume represent a wide breadth of responses to the competition theme, refining and expanding the notion of value in contemporary design practice. With contributions by David Eskenazi, Garrett Ricciardi, Julian Rose, Leslie Lok, Sasa Zivkovic, Isaac Michan Daniel, Ivi Diamantopoulou, Jaffer Kolb, Luis Beltran del Rio Garcia, Andrew Sosa Martinez, Anna Puigjaner, Anne Rieselbach.

The aim of this textbook is to provide undergraduate students with an introduction to the basic theoretical models of computability, and to develop some of the model's rich and varied structure. Students who have already some experience with elementary discrete mathematics will find this a well-paced first course, and a number of supplementary chapters introduce more advanced concepts. The first part of the book is devoted to finite automata and their properties. Pushdown automata provide a broader class of models and enable the analysis of context-free languages. In the remaining chapters, Turing machines are introduced and the book culminates in discussions of effective computability, decidability, and Gödel's incompleteness theorems. Plenty of exercises are provided, ranging from the easy to the challenging. As a result, this text will make an ideal first course for students of computer science.

Giving you insight into real-world practice, INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS provides an introduction to the industry and basic understanding of the subjects needed for starting a career in industrial robotics. It begins with a background on the history and development of industrial automation, then moves into robot mechanical unit configurations, controller architecture, and general software structure. Basic programming instruction definition and interpretation enable you to break a programming problem into its component parts, solve the component parts, and integrate them into a finished program. Three subjects not typically addressed in robotic texts are discussed: industrial sensors, vision systems, and maintenance. Comprehensive coverage also includes the basic types of tooling and their applications, economic aspects of robots in the workplace, and the issues of human/robot interfaces.

Robotics has worked its way from science fiction to science without the fiction to widespread applications not only in manufacturing but in medical research and other fields as well. Progress had been accelerated by the faster-than-light advances in miniaturisation. This book provides important citations, primarily to the book literature, with access through author, subject and title indexes.

For some time, all branches of the military have used a wide range of sensors to provide data for many purposes, including surveillance, reconnoitring, target detection and battle damage assessment. Many nations have also attempted to utilise these sensors for civilian applications, such as crop monitoring, agricultural disease tracking, environmental diagnostics, cartography, ocean temperature profiling, urban planning, and the characterisation of the Ozone Hole above Antarctica. The recent convergence of several important technologies has made possible new, advanced, high performance, sensor based applications relying on the near-simultaneous fusion of data from an ensemble of different types of sensors. The book examines the underlying principles of sensor operation and data fusion, the techniques and technologies that enable the process, including the operation of 'fusion engines'. Fundamental theory and the enabling technologies of data fusion are presented in a systematic and accessible manner. Applications are discussed in the areas of medicine, meteorology, BDA and targeting, transportation, cartography, the environment, agriculture, and manufacturing and process control.

Cui bono? - Wem nutzt die Entwicklung humanoider Maschinen oder Automaten? Dieses Buch eroertert die Details dieses Spannungsfelds und die Herausforderung gesellschaftlicher Weiterentwicklung. Als technisch-elektronische Handhabungsgerate koennen sie den Menschen zutraglich sein, sie von koerperlich belastenden Arbeiten oder sogenannten Routinearbeiten befreien. Der Autor versucht die Fragen zu beleuchten: Was erwartet die Menschheit durch die Entwicklung einer kunstlichen Intelligenz in einer menschahnlichen Maschine? Was aber, wenn der selbstbestimmende Mensch an der Schwelle steht, sich selbst durch intelligente selbstorganisierte Produkte und Prozesse eine humanoide Konkurrenz zu schaffen, die er moeglicherweise nicht mehr kontrollieren kann?